Brush with young turkey less than jake

Waterfronts

Spring turkey season opened Saturday in South Florida, and some hunters were able to bag a bird. But just because you don't kill a gobbler doesn't mean your turkey hunt wasn't a success.

Sandy Mendez hunted opening morning in the Big Cypress National Preserve and had an experience he won't soon forget.

Mendez, 48, of Liberty City, has killed a number of wild turkeys over the years. He shot his first gobbler in the Big Cypress while a student at Columbus High School in Miami.

"I killed a good bird out there and I didn't realize at the time what I had done," Mendez said, explaining that turkeys weren't as abundant then as they are now. "Its beard was a little bit over 9 inches and the spurs were over an inch apiece."

Last season Mendez killed two good-sized birds on consecutive days on his hunting lease in Taylor County. The first turkey weighed 22 1/2 pounds, the second 20 pounds.

This season Mendez said he wanted to see if could kill a swamp gobbler, which is what some hunters call the turkeys that live in the watery wilderness that is the Big Cypress. So he scouted the woods south of U.S. Highway 41 and, after slogging through water that was over his knees in some places, he found the tracks of a small gobbler on a pine flat.

Mendez was back at that flat Saturday morning, and so was the gobbler.

"I don't think I hit that slate call twice when what actually sounded like a hen started coming to my call," Mendez said. "And I said, 'Son of a gun.' So I waited."

The bird never gobbled, but it clucked a lot as it walked around where Mendez was set up. When the bird finally came into view, Mendez saw it was a jake with a tiny, 2-inch beard. Jakes are gobblers that are less than a year old, but they are legal to kill in Florida.

Mendez pointed his shotgun at the jake, which he had no intention of shooting, and the bird flew off.

"I could've shot him easily," Mendez said. "Then I said, 'Let me see if I can get him in a second time,' so I went to a different call just to make it interesting, and he came on back. So I did the same thing and he took off.

"I have a little old push-pull call that I do not like. I've never liked it, it's real high-pitched and I hardly ever use the thing, and I said, 'Let me try this piece of junk' and see if he'll come on in to that. Son of a gun came on in to that. And I said, 'Buddy, I hope I've given you Hunter Awareness 101 today because if you're here next year and you're carrying a 6- or 7-inch beard, I will go ahead and take you.' "